Girls birthdays

Zoe's cake was chocolate and Maeley's was carrot cake with a maple flavored frosting

Zoe was thrilled to get Kit's bed.

A birthday treat at Barnes and Noble.

Maeley finally got Hermione's wand.

And Molly's table and chairs

Maeley with her dolls Emily and Molly.

Zoe's baptism pictures

To say Zoe was happy was an understatement. Derek took these pictures early one morning and it was colder than it had been. It didn't stop her from having a huge smile across her face. 

When we took her shopping for her baptism dress she was very certain of the one she wanted and didn't let anyone else sway her decision. 

Her happiness is contagious.

October 2016 randoms

We took the girls to the American Girl store but somehow I only have a picture of Zoe. 

Chase and Derek with matching socks. They are both so similar its often creepy.

Trying to coordinate outfits for our family pictures.

This is totally awesome! It took some convincing to get Derek on board with buying these. I'm so glad he did because they make me so happy! 

Fall break- Hike at Fossil Creek

I love my hiking loving family! 

Side note: everyone with their own Camelbak is wonderful! 

It was such a beautiful place. Sadly we could only do the shorter hike as the longer hike in order to get to the trail we would have had to cross the river. The water was a bit too deep and moving too fast to feel good about crossing with 3 kids. We had a great time anyways and hope to go back again someday.

Celebrations cookbook

September-

A blogger I have been following for quite some time was coming out with a new book. I was lucky enough to get an early copy to test out recipes.

 My family said the peach cobbler was amazing! I was unfortunately on a sugar detox and couldn't have any.

I made these sunbutter cups that were also great. 

Vegetable bacon parcels are delicious!  

Smokey candied bacon sweet potatoes are AMAZING! 

Carrot cake! This was actually Zoe's cake for her birthday.

I have made many other recipes in her book and love them all! 

In October was did a book signing at the Williams Sonoma store in Scottsdale so Laurel and I got tickets! 

Danielle Walker was so sweet in person.

The rattlesnake hike!

With all of our hiking in the desert is was bound to happen, we encountered a rattlesnake on our hike.

We started the hike at about 7am. Nice and cool especially in the shade. 

The desert does have its own beauty. 

We hiked the Bluff Springs trail which at some point loops into the Lost Dutchman trail. 

This was our longest hike yet at about 6 hours and 12 miles. The kids did great! At the beginning of the hike we saw a couple people. Then for several miles we didn't see anyone. Maybe around mile 8 we saw one hiker. He warned us that there was a rattlesnake on the trail up ahead and that he would let you know he was there.

 At that point it would have been longer to turn back and hike out where we came from as this trail loops around. We decided to keep going but now we were on high alert and Derek was the leader. Zoe was terrified so we had a family prayer right on the trail. When we got close that rattlesnake let us know. I'm not going to lie I was shaking. Derek lead the way for Chase and Maeley but Zoe was too scared. Zoe and I took a longer loop to stear clear of that awful snake. We had another prayer for gratitude that we were all okay and that that one hiker was able to warn us of the danger up ahead. After that we still were nervous about another one but at least we all knew exactly what a rattlesnake sounds like. 

We were happy to get back to the car and have lunch. We were hungry! 

New windows

Sadly towards the end of August during a monsoon storm we discovered that we had windows leaking. What sounded like a faucet left on was actually a window leaking. It was quite a bit of water. After getting towels out I went around the check all the other windows and found 3 others leaking as well. It was frustrating considering the house is only 10 years old. After having a professional come out and inspect each of our windows were came to the conclusion it was best to replace all of them. Not what we had wanted to spend our money on.

I'm really happy with how they turned out. I didn't realize how awful the old ones were until we got these installed. They are so easy to open and they look better too!